Mark Billingham - From the Dead

Thorne looked hard at him. 'I'm really hoping that doesn't happen.'

If Fraser got the message, he showed no sign of it. 'Anyway, you're waiting on stuff happening at home, right? Even if he is your man, you've got sod all on him until then, so… Where are you.. .?'

Thorne was already stepping off the pavement and walking back towards the beach.

Fraser went after him, pointing back towards the street where they'd left the Punto. 'We're up there, mate.'

'I want to find the place where the photos were taken.'

'What's the point of that?'

Thorne had no good answer, but he kept on walking. Behind him, he heard Fraser say, 'I'll wait in the car.'

After ten minutes, Thorne had walked the length of the beach without success. The line of hills stayed ahead of him, but it was impossible to pinpoint the location he was after. The place where Langford had posed for the photographs could have been any one of half a dozen beach bars and restaurants.

Thorne stopped and breathed in the sea, stared out across a small bay towards the hills. Although he had exiled himself through necessity rather than choice, it was not hard to see why Langford liked it here. It was clear in the shark-smile he had turned on for the camera, the glass raised in a toast to his new life.

Enjoy it while you can, Thorne thought.

Sweating, he walked back to the road and kicked the sand off his shoes against the kerb. He bought himself an ice-cream from a cafe near the place where they'd had lunch, then ambled back past the tower to the car park. Fraser was waiting with the engine running, drumming his hands impatiently on the wheel.

Thorne climbed in. 'Sorry for keeping you waiting, Peter.'

Fraser yanked the gearstick into reverse. 'Pete,' he said.

Kate was having lunch in town with a friend, and that suited Donna perfectly well. Things between them were a damn sight better than they had been for weeks, but they still kept out of each other's way as much as possible, eating separately more often than not and sometimes going for a day or two without speaking a word.

They hadn't touched one another in almost two months.

Donna drank tea in the kitchen, flicking through a magazine without taking in a word. She glanced towards the hall every few minutes. She turned on the radio, then switched it off a minute later, scared she might not hear the phone ringing.

Definitely better that Kate wasn't here, she decided. There would only be a row if she overheard, or disapproving looks at the very least.

Fine one she was to talk about secrets, mind you.

They were both silly, stubborn bitches, that was the problem. That, and the fact that one of the things they had both learned inside, learned together, was that you never gave an inch.

There was very little shouting any more, not since the big blow-up when Thorne had come marching in like God Almighty and dropped his bombshell. When it had all come out about Kate meeting up with Ellie after she'd left prison. For a day or two back then, Donna had really lost it, had been steaming with rage in a way she had not been for a good many years. Maybe not since Alan. But then she'd noticed the change in Kate and the anger towards her partner had slowly begun to cool. Donna had stopped feeling as though she could hurt her when she'd seen how damaged Kate had been.

Thorne had thrown Kate's past in her face like boiling water laced with sugar. A 'wet-up', they called it in prison, and it was designed to scar. He had made snide suggestions, accusations, and, since then, Kate had seemed wary and reserved. Donna had never seen that before. One of the things she had loved about Kate when they'd first met had been a fearlessness, a 'bring it on' attitude that was impossible to resist.

She missed that. She missed her. And she hoped the day would come when she felt able to tell her, and to forgive her for lying about Ellie. As it was, anger towards Kate had given way to the acid of resentment coupled with something close to pity.

The rage was still in there somewhere, though. A few days earlier in the supermarket, a woman had barged in front of Donna at the checkout as if she did not exist. The snotty cow had her daughter with her, eight or nine, and the little brat had looked up at Donna with the same tight-arsed expression as her mother. Then she had smiled, like she wanted to know what Donna was going to do about it.

That hadn't helped.

Donna had forced herself to look away, then breathed and breathed until she was sure she would not scream and smash the woman's perfectly made-up face down on to the conveyor belt.

Sometimes that inch had to be given, to save you from yourself.

She was thinking there was nothing she would not give to save Ellie, to get her girl back, when the phone rang. She put down her cup too fast, spilling tea across the work surface, then walked into the hall, praying it was the call she was expecting from Spain.

Fifteen minutes west of Benalmadena, Fraser turned off the main road and they began to drive up into the hills.

'We'll get you settled into your hotel,' Fraser said. 'Then we can meet up later and get the ball rolling.'

'Where am I staying?' Thorne asked.

'It's a nice place. They don't do food, so you'll need to find somewhere to have breakfast, but aside from that-'

' Where? '

'Mijas,' Fraser said. 'Mijas Pueblo, as opposed to Mijas Costa. It's a really gorgeous village. Proper old Spain, you know?'

'How far?'

'Fifteen minutes or so. It's a nice drive.'

'I thought I'd be in Malaga.'

Fraser glanced across.

'That's where you're based, right?'

'We decided you might prefer to be somewhere quieter. A bit less conspicuous…'

'Would have been nice to be consulted.'

'Look, it's no more than half an hour from anywhere we're interested in. Puerto Banus, Torremolinos, Malaga, at least two of the golf resorts our man's got his fingers in. Trust me, it's a good location, so don't start feeling left out or whatever.'

'Who said I was?'

'Anyway, you might prefer being somewhere that isn't wall-to-wall full English breakfasts and live Premiership football.'

'Nothing wrong with either of them,' Thorne said.

'You're Spurs, right?'

Thorne held Fraser's look for a second longer than he might otherwise have done, acknowledging that the agent had done his homework. Not long enough to let him feel like he'd scored any points, though.

'Who are you?'

'Man U, mate, who else?'

'You're a Londoner.'

Fraser nodded, as though that were perfectly acceptable. 'Still the team to beat,' he said.

Thorne blinked, remembered the rain coming down as he and Anna had walked back from the river. When she had revealed her affiliation and sung Wayne Rooney's praises, laughing as Thorne grew increasingly exasperated.

'You're just jealous because your lot never win anything.'

'At least the people who support "my lot" live in the city where they play.'

'Right. We are definitely going to the next Man United – Spurs game. A tenner says we stuff you.'

'Only another five minutes,' Fraser said.

The climb had not felt particularly steep, but looking to his right as they swept around a corner, Thorne could see the sea far below them. The landscape fell away gently towards it on either side, rocky and dotted with trees then getting greener, dip by dip, as it neared the coast. They passed several signs warning of bulls in the road and then finally Thorne saw a field of them. Eight or nine: big and black and looking well capable of breaking through the fence and taking on a Punto.

'So, whose ashes are scattered in Mijas, then?' Thorne asked.

'Come again?'

'The Milk Tray man? That bloke off the Mr Muscle adverts?'